Learn our policies
These rules must be read and agreed to before you are allowed to play in Pinscher. By playing in our game, you tacitly agree to follow all of these rules. Ignorance of the rules is not an excuse for breaking them. The Staff are the ultimate judges of what constitutes a violation, and their decisions are final.
1. Don't be a dick. This rule trumps all other rules. Harassing other players, posting hateful, pornographic, or otherwise offensive content in OOC chat, inventing your own 'golden rules' excessive rules-lawyering with Staff… there are too many permutations to list, but we all know what "being a dick" means. Don't be a dick.
2. Strikes. The first time a player breaks a rule, he or she will be warned. If a player has been warned in the past, each violation will receive a strike. On the third strike, the player will be banned. The Staff reserve the right to ban users without strikes or warnings if the case is egregious.
3. Adult Content. This is a game for adults. You must be 18 years or older in order to play. Sexually-suggestive content can be acceptable if it serves a storytelling purpose, but starting to lick on another player at random and asking if your roleplaying good, you have gone too far and have a very different idea about what is roleplaying than the rest of us. Try one of the places that got sexuall orientations in their room descriptions.
4. No Metagaming. Metagaming is when your character's behavior is informed by knowledge that your character does not possess. Using out-of-character information to make in-character decisions, or to gain an advantage, is cheating. Strictly speaking, it is not against the rules to share OOC information with other players - but because it is extremely tempting to metagame once a player has that information, it is generally frowned upon to do so.
Example: Anne's character murders Jake's character. Jake, now knowing that Anne is a murderer who is not to be trusted, creates a new character who is an investigator, and makes it his business to "find out" that Anne's character is a killer so that he can catch her and see her punished. Jake is metagaming.
5. Supervision and Consent. Any action taken during open play which would directly affect another player-character - including any attempt to glean information about that character which is not freely offered - may only be performed with informed OOCconsent of both players. If one of the people involved does not give consent, then the action may only be performed under direct supervision by Staff.
Example: John wants to know if Jane's character is lying to him, and decides he'd like to use an Empathy roll to find out. He asks Jane if she wouldn't mind a contested roll of Wits + Empathy vs. Wits + Subterfuge. Jane says she'd rather let the Staff mediate, so in this case no roll is made and Jane does not have to tell John anything she doesn't want to. Later, in a scene monitored by the Staff, John presses Jane again and calls for the contested roll. The Staff allow it, and when John wins, the Staff member informs John that Jane appears to be nervous, but that he can't tell directly whether or not that means she is lying, because the Empathy Skill is not a magical lie detector. Jane was probably right not to allow John to use the skill in that way.
6. Player vs. Player Combat is permitted (and sometimes encouraged), but only under direct supervision by Staff. If a fight breaks out during a scene, and a Staff member is not available to arbitrate, then the scene must be put on hold until a Staff member becomes available. If two players feel they know the rules and can handle it well enough with eachother, and both report the same outcome to the staff after, that can be alright, however, if both does not, it dosnt matter who said what to who, it didnt happen and its your own fault for starting silly drama and proving that no, you two as a team, couldnt.
And finally…
7. Brutal Difficulty. The Staff here believe that great stories are best told under adversity, and to that effect, will be setting out to challenge you. Playing in this game will be difficult. I'm not talking about rolling dice, or min-maxing traits - anyone can do that. (Min-maxing is bad. Please stop.) I'm talking about making difficult decisions, about dealing with NPCs who behave like real people, who have their own selfish motivations, and who do not exist to help you. This is an unfair world in which many characters - PC and NPC alike - will have no problems lying to you, using you, or even outright betraying you.
